In working recently on the topic of leadership and decision making processes in social environments, I thought I'd clarify something per my book. Quite often I see these decision-making methods split into simple categories--centralized versus marketplace (or distributed)--

when there is so much more. Additionally, the way how people work to produce results is not the same as who is involved in making the decisions.

One milling question from those who’ve looked closely
at my book, Social Networking for Business, is that leadership and decision-making processes seem to appear in two
different areas: the chapter 3 “Leadership in Social environments” and then
later again in the section “Describing the Form of Aggregation” in Chapter 4 on
Social Tasks. I should explain the key differences here.

Chapter 3 focuses on six different common leadership models:
Centralized, Centralized w/ Input, Delegated, Representative, Starfish and
Swarm. These models focus on whois allowed to participate
in the decision making process, set direction for the social group, and select
leaders. These range from those with very strongly centered to very distributed
leadership.

The Aggregation methods on the other hand describe how
these decisions are made or this work executed: Independent,
Autonomous, Consensus, Deliberative, and Combative. These again are
alternatives to each other to create results.

Very briefly:

Independent—Members work on the task separately, but the results are aggregated across all members

Autonomous—Members work on the task separately of each other, and their results are distinctly visible to other members as separate work.

Consensus—A group of members works directly together on the task with the intent to deliver an overall collective result, even if it’s not unanimous or convergent.

Deliberative—A group of members works directly together without the intent or necessity of coming to a consensus on a single result.

Combative—Members must compete against each other to derive the best result from the group, denying other choices.

Certain pairs are more likely to occur: e.g., a swarm is
likely to use the Independent aggregation where only the combined results (voting)
across many members result in a single value. A delegated model is likely to
have autonomous decisions spread across the different domains delegated across
the leaders.

The moral here:
Set the right expectations -- Be clear not only about who
can make the decisions, but also for those who can do so, how they can make
such decisions.

When you consider how relationship development is at the heart of social computing and enterprise 2.0, it should be natural to consider the career and leadership development of your employees in this context. This opens up new areas of thought into what it means to influence and lead others through an entirely digital medium rather than when you have a face-to-face leader. Inmy Forbes article (on Apr 16), I describe it as digital eminence to differentiate from one's leadership activities and capabilities through non-virtual environments--often amusingly referred to as "in real life", IRL for short).

The best way that I have found to describe it is in terms of how do people understand, appreciate and recognize your expertise, knowledge and skills through online interactions. This could be anywhere online, even email and chat, but it becomes more visible in social computing environments. I also like to separate this idea from personal brand building. While conceptually you are actually bringing out how you are different and significant from other people--even perhaps Seth Godin's notion of a linchpin in your organization--brand building also harks of self-promotion and ego-stroking. Digital eminence emphasizes what others think of you and your abilities, which may or may not have anything to do with self-promotion.

A second danger is in trying to quantify what is essentially a qualitative assessment. We should be very careful in considering number of followers, friends in your network, or quantity of posts as an indication of one's digital eminence. When you consider eminence as how you stand out, essentially a comparison versus the aggregate group of others in the same field, it may be seen as a ranking. Similarly, such quantity metrics also reinforce this ranking and rating approach. That raises lots of ethical questions when you look at it per individual.

That aside, the real question is what are you doing about sharing your expertise and skills with others? By doing so, you are building your digital eminence.

MIT Emeritus Professor, Edgar Schein's classic book on Organizational Culture and Leadership describeshow companies undergo differentiation at a cultural level in "mid-life"which has given views to some classic opinions of how IT folks viewculture versus how executives, sales and other folks (termed Operators)see it. This may seem a little dated in some ways but the core thoughtsstill pervade many companies (even us).

One classic argumentin this vein is the different views of "should information becontrolled" discussion which comes up so frequently in social computingand media.

I thought it might be interesting to see a third-viewin terms of how social computing aficionados view culture. Taking adirect copy from Schein's book (pg 275-277) are the first two columns,albeit sorted slightly. The third is my comparsion in terms of socialcomputing.

Please feel free to add your views.

IT Culture

Operator & Executive culture

Social Computing culture

Information can be packaged into bits and transmitted electronically

Information relevant to operations must include face-to-face human contact in order to be accurately understood.

People can relate to both information and other people through electronic means

More Information is always better than less.

The more quantifiable Information is the better.

Information must be extracted from raw data and will be meaningful only in particular context that is itself perpetually changing.

Meaning derives only from complex patterns.

More information is helpful but it should be interpreted through each individual’s view and understanding of context

Technology leads and people should adapt.

People can and should learn the language and methods of IT

Technology should adapt to people and be user friendly

Technology should follow how people behave, and adapt to their language and methods.

Technology should be assistive.

Management will give up hierarchy if IT provides better coordination mechanisms

Hierarchy is intrinsic to human systems and a necessary coordination mechanism

The costs associated with speed may not be worth it

We live in a fast-paced, highly interrelated, and mesh world where hierarchical access is not always the most effective way to distribute information.

Social computing can provide better ways for different ways to organize coordination, including hierarchical structure.

The more fully connected an organization is, the better it will perform

Too much connectivity produces information overload

Social computing can assist maintaining relationships and connectivity, and managing information sources

People will use information responsibly and appropriately

Control of information is a necessary management tool and the only way of maintaining power and status

Give people a chance to demonstrate responsibility.

Show them helpful methods but do not limit their behaviors

Paper can be replaced by electronically stored information

The ability to see and manipulate paper is intrinsic to many kinds of tasks